The Future Of U.S. Energy, According To Donald Trump

Donald Trump speaks to a packed arena at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, ND.

With the help of a few more delegates from a handful of states, including North Dakota, Donald Trump finally gathered enough to clinch the GOP nomination on Thursday. With that news, the official Republican presidential nominee rolled into Bismarck, North Dakota on Thursday to speak at an oil industry conference.

Trump started with President Obama, accusing him of killing jobs and restricting energy development. And he quickly turned to his current rival and her oft-quoted, widely criticized comments about putting coal miners out of work:

“If Hillary can’t shut down the mines, she can really shut down our whole country and your businesses will be permanently in many cases permanently ruined,” Trump said.

Trump contrasted himself to Clinton, saying he would put people back to work andgrow the economy. That connection between jobs, energy development, and economic prosperity was a major theme in his speech.

But putting energy workers back on the job is no easy task because the big driver behind those job losses is not just Obama, or even Clinton. It’s the weak market for fossil fuels, which is really more a matter of supply and demand.

Upping U.S. energy production, he reasoned, will make America great again.

“We’re loaded, didn’t even know it, we’re loaded. We had no idea how rich we were!” Trump exclaimed, referencing U.S. fossil fuels reserves.

With those riches could come energy independence, an idea Trump hit on several times. But many economists say that the concept of energy independence is basically meaningless because oil, for example, is a global commodity and thus subject to global price fluctuations.

Pushback Against Climate Change Initiatives

Trump didn’t talk much about how all of this energy development relates to the environment, although he did say he wants clean air and water. But climate change is still an important theme, especially with President Obama’s push for stricter regulations. Here is where Trump stands on that issue:

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